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JaydenWhite's avatar
JaydenWhite
Iron Contributor
Apr 28, 2025

How to open rar files on Windows 11?

Hi all, I recently switched to Windows 11 and am still getting familiar with the system. I have a few files downloaded in RAR format, but I'm not sure how to open them. Double click does not work at...
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AbigailYoung's avatar
AbigailYoung
Iron Contributor
Apr 28, 2025

In Windows 11, decompression in RAR format is not directly supported by the system itself, because RAR is a proprietary compression format (developed by WinRAR), and Windows only natively supports open formats such as ZIP Windows only natively supports open formats such as ZIP. However, you can "indirectly" use Windows' built-in features to work with RAR files in two ways.

How it works:

Some RAR files (especially single-volume, unencrypted ones) may be incorrectly labeled as .rar, but may actually be in ZIP format (such as .zip or .cbz).

Windows Explorer does not associate the .rar extension by default, but if you manually change it to .zip, the system may try to open it with the built-in ZIP decompression tool.

How to open .rar files on Windows 11

  1. Open File Explorer → click “View” at the top → Check “File Extensions”.
  2. Right click on the RAR file → Rename → change .rar to .zip (e.g. file.rar → file.zip).
  3. Double-click on the modified .zip file and Windows will try to decompress it with the built-in tool.

 

Upon success, the file will be extracted to the current directory; if it fails, you will be prompted "Windows cannot open this file". This is the simple way to open rar files in a Windows 11/10 PC.

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